NETCOM Research Group

Telefónica is satisfied with the results of the ETSI’s first Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Interoperability event, called NFV PlugtestsTM, celebrated in Leganés, Madrid, from January 23 to February 3, 2017.

Hosted by 5TONIC Laboratory, Spain’s first Lab of 5G excellence, established by Telefónica and IMDEA Networks Institute, ETSI NFV PlugtestsTM had the technical support from Telefónica. As an early plugtest, the participation of many companies and organizations from many locations and the early stage of the NFV standard, the outline of the test environment had a special complexity to assure the success of the plugtest event. In this regard, Telefónica, through its NFV Reference Lab, has given technical advice on the design of the test environment as well as the necessary support to get it done. Moreover, Telefónica has participated in the test as part of ETSI Open Source MANO (OSM) community, the operator-led ETSI community that is delivering a production-quality open source Management and Orchestration (MANO) stack aligned with ETSI NFV Information Models, giving support in the integration of different vendors and organizations.

“As service providers, we see these events, which bring the industry together to work in practical and near real-world conditions, as a really effective tool to accelerate the availability of a variety of NFV products that can interoperate successfully in field, which is a key requirement for massive deployments of NFV technologies” said Javier Gavilán, Director Network Technology and Planning at global CTO at Telefónica.

The 1st ETSI NFV Interoperability event was a challenging enterprise in terms of the variety of technologies involved and the complexity of the pre-testing phase, combined with an extensive, dynamic and proactive number of on-site participants and of remote connections. Over 30 commercial and open source implementations were tested for interoperability, including 15 Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), 10 Management and Orchestration (MANO) solutions and 9 NFV platforms. Over 140 people prepared the two-week event, forming an engaged and diverse community. The 30 companies that took part on these sessions performed a variety of tests combining VNFs, MANO solutions and NFV Platforms. ETSI is now analyzing the overall results and shall feed back to the participants, a unique opportunity to stimulate synergy and alignment across the NFV ecosystem.